Why people look for a Crushon AI alternative
Hosted character sites make the first chat effortless: open the page, pick a character, type. The trade comes later. Message allowances run out mid-story, the model is whatever the site chooses to run, settings are a few sliders, and your history lives on someone else's servers. None of that is a problem until it is, and then there is not much you can do about it from inside the site.
The other route takes about ten minutes to set up once. You run a frontend, usually SillyTavern, and connect it to an API you pick. This page compares the two honestly and shows how to move your characters over. It does not quote Crushon's own plans or prices; check those on Crushon, since they change.
Hosted chat versus your own setup
| Hosted character site | Frontend plus API | |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | None, open the site | About ten minutes, once |
| Paying | Monthly tiers, often with message allowances | Per token, no monthly bill |
| Model choice | Whatever the site offers | Any model your API serves, switch any time |
| Settings | A few sliders | Full control: context size, sampling, prompts |
| Your chats | Kept on the site | Kept by your frontend on your device |
If you want zero setup, a hosted site is easier, and that is a fair trade. If you have hit message caps, want a stronger model, or want your chat history on your own machine, the second column is worth ten minutes.
Moving your characters
Characters you made yourself are easy to bring over. In SillyTavern, create a new character and paste in the pieces:
- Description and personality: who they are, how they talk, what they want.
- First message: the greeting that opens the chat.
- Example dialogue: a few lines in their voice. This does more for consistency than anything else on the card.
- Scenario: where and when the story starts.
For characters made by other people, look for the same character on a public card library, where it is often published as a card you can import directly. A rebuilt card is often better than the original, because you can see and edit every part of it.
What it costs instead
Pay per token means a quiet month costs little and a busy one costs more. There is no allowance to run out of and no tier to upgrade.
Say a scene has grown to 6,000 tokens of character card and history, and the model writes a 300 token reply, on a model priced at $0.40 per million input tokens and $1.60 per million output tokens. Input costs $0.0024, output costs $0.00048, so the message costs about $0.003, or roughly 350 messages for a dollar.
Long histories and long cards push that number up, which the SillyTavern setup guide shows how to manage. Live prices are on the model list, and the top-up fee is on the pricing page.
Which model to use
Every model on the Wild West API line is uncensored or abliterated, so none of them will step out of a scene to refuse it. Start with a Flash model for everyday chats; it is fast and holds a million tokens of context. Move to the full-size model when a story has a big cast or needs subtler writing. The guide to the best uncensored LLM for roleplay explains the differences.
Getting started
- Install SillyTavern on your computer, or on Android through Termux.
- Get a Wild West API key and add some credit.
- Connect it: Chat Completion, Custom (OpenAI-compatible), base URL
https://wildwestapi.com/v1. - Rebuild your favourite character and pick up where you left off.
Scripts and other apps connect the same way; the API docs have examples.
Questions
Is a frontend plus API harder to use?
The first ten minutes are. After that it is a chat window like any other, with far more settings when you want them.
Can I import my characters from Crushon?
Characters you wrote yourself are quick to rebuild by copying their fields into a new card. For other people's characters, look for the same character on a public card library.
Are there message limits?
No. You pay per token from your balance. Spending caps are optional and set per key.